Showing posts with label Marvel Studios. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marvel Studios. Show all posts

Monday 25 July 2022

Stinger in the MCU

This is a different kind of post, just something quick to talk about the news coming out of the San Diego Comic Convention. During the convention, Marvel Studios have released the first official look at upcoming movie Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. The piece of concept art was produced by Andy Park and features not only the titular Scott Lang’s Ant-Man and Hope Van Dyne’s the Wasp but also provides a glimpse of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Cassie Lang, depicted for the first time in full super heroic attire.

 

 


 

While it is not confirmed at this point what moniker Cassie will adopt in the film, judging by her costume’s purple colour scheme I think it is safe to venture a guess this is a version of the Stinger identity. The Stinger codename and costume first appeared in the MC2 with A-Next #1 and, many years later, the Main Marvel Universe version of Cassie would adopt both starting with Astonishing Ant-Man #6.


 



While all the Ant-Man related characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe are required to wear a helmet that encases their head as mentioned in the first Ant-Man film, it is nice to see Cassie wearing one that retains at least some of the elements of her comic counterpart such as the coloured eye-pieces. Additionally, the costume also integrates the gauntlets used for offensive attacks. It is not comic accurate, but I must note the footwear, too.  I mean, look at them!

 


Since I started writing this post, it has apparently been confirmed Cassie’s heroic identity will in fact be Stinger, not Stature. I am going to be paying this movie more attention than other recent entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I find it amusing that the Ant-Man movie of all things was the first big screen adaption to use an MC2 character, and now its sequel is continuing the theme.

 

Until I stop giving a massive multinational corporation that does not care about my existence my disposable income, I remain

 

frogoat

 

 


Saturday 13 July 2019

Sony VS Marvel: How it affects the MC2



Some of you may recall that back in November 2014, Sony Pictures were the target of hackers, resulting in a large amount of confidential data being leaked online. Amongst the documents released were several detailing the Amazing Spider-Man film series and correspondence with Marvel Studios. It's fairly well known the backlash to the concepts and opinions leaked resulted in Spider-Man appearing in the Marvel Cinematic Universe

Which brings me to today's post. I hadn't given much thought to the exact details of Sony's contracts and agreements to produce films based on Spider-Man, which characters they could and couldn't use or anything like that until I saw this recent video by the YouTube channel Midnight's Edge:




It was while watching that I noticed a familiar name in one of the screenshots of the Sony documents: Meagyn Brady. I'd always figured May 'Mayday' Parker was included in the package of characters for the film rights to the Spider-Man franchise, but it never really occurred to me such minor characters would be mentioned. So I did some digging through the leaked documents.

As it turns out, I found a lot of original MC2 character's names mentioned under various categories. I may have missed a few within this document which appears to be a more finalized version of these prior documents but I've attempted to include even some which may not, just for the sake of completeness. Let me know what I've missed or omitted. Here's the list of the characters quoted as presented under the various sub-headings in the document:

Alternate Versions of Spider-Man include all of the following


Spider-Man (IV)/Gerry Drew

Schedule 6


Named Characters


Black Tarantula (II)/Fabian LaMuerto
Buzz, The/Jack Jameson
Crazy Eight
Daze
Goblin God/Peter Parker
Green Goblin, The (VI)/Norman "Normie" Harry Osborn
Killerwatt
Misery/Melissa Carsdale
Mr. Nobody
Scarlet Spider (VII)/Felicity Hardy
Spider-Girl (I)/ May "Mayday" Parker
Spider-Girl 2020/May Parker
Spider-Man (IV)/Gerry Drew
Spider-Venom
Spider-Woman/ May "Mayday" Parker
Venom/Spider-Girl, May "Mayday" Parker


Teams/Groups/Gangs


Team Spider


Supporting Characters


Aftershock
April (first appearing in Spider-Girl #75)
Babbit, Mr
Barney – agent of Hobgoblin (first appearing in Amazing Spider-Girl #2)
Bitter Frost
Brady, Meagyn
Canis
Carlo, Mona
Claw
Desantos, Simone
Diana - Black Cat's love interest in MC2 Universe
Dragon King/Carlton T. Hackmutter
Drasco, Det. Vinnie
Duran, Courtney-May "Mayday" Parker's friend
Funny Face
Fury the Goblin Queen/ Elan DeJunae
Golden Goblin
Grief Machine
Groote, Leonard
Hardy, Felicity (daughter of Felicia)
Healy, Gus
Healy, Joyce
Healy, Sandra
Hicks, Ralphie
Hingle, Duane
Hingle, Cindy
Hingle, Sarah
Impact
Jade, Dr. Sonja
Kirby, Davida - May "Mayday" Parker's friend
Kodiak
Kurkle, Charlie
La Fantome
Ladyhawk/Regina Morgan
Ladyhawk/Rosetta Morgan
Lieber, Caitlyn
Lu, Nancy - May "Mayday" Parker's friend
Mansfield, Billy
Mansfield, Katy
Mansfield, Moose
Mansfield, Mr. - father of Moose
Miller, Brad
Mr. Abnormal
Parker, April - clone of May Parker
Parker, Benjamin "Benjy" Richard Parker
Phillip, Charlie
Pirouette
Quickwire
Ragone, Theodore "Turtle"
Raptor/Brenda Drago
Reverb / Rudolf
Spyral
Thompson, Gene (son of Eugene "Flash" Thompson and Felicia Hardy)
Tyne, Reilly
Weadon, Arthur
Westin, Wes
Yama, Jimmy
Yi, Spike

Business and Other IP


Café Indigo
Deacon's Den
"EVERYBODY'S HAPPY" - program
Hotel Caprice
Humanity First
Kingsley International
Spider Shoppe
Spidera
St. Andrew's -women's shelter
Zebra Patrol


SCHEDULE 7A

Frozen Characters




Hero or Villain


Spider-Man appearing as a member of the Fantastic Four (e.g., as a member of the Fantastic Five or Fatal Force)
Reilly Tyne as an alias for Darkdevil


Anthropomorphic Variations


Mary Porker

Schedule 8


Marvel Reserved Characters




Hero or Villain


Bluestreak (III) (first appearing in A-Next)
Coal Tiger/T'Chaka
Darkdevil
Dragonfist
Freebooter/Brandon Cross
Mad Dog Rassitano
Magneta
Stinger/Cassandra "Cassie" Lang
Stormtrooper/Eric Masterson
Thunderstrike/Kevin Masterson
Wild Thing

Teams, Groups, and Gangs


Sons of Serpent/Soldiers of the Serpent


There were many, many other characters that appear in the MC2 who I didn't included in the above list because I only transcribed characters who hadn't appeared anywhere prior to their MC2 appearances. So Phil Urich isn't listed above because he debuted beforehand, meanwhile Normie is listed only as a version of the Green Goblin. Make sense? Good. You'll have noticed a few odd spellings and the occasional character that might not be from the MC2, but I've listed some (such as 'Mary Porker') because I believe they may be typos, misreading or similar mistakes.



The most fascinating discovery was that a character named Reilly Tyne could be used by Sony, so long as he wasn't linked to Darkdevil, and Marvel Studios appears to be able to use the design and name of Darkdevil so long as his secret identity isn't Reilly Tyne. This is attributed to the Daredevil-related elements of the character's super hero identity. Being the son of Ben Reilly -a literal clone of Peter Parker- means he's a Spider-Man character while his super hero moniker, appearance and origin link him to Daredevil as well as Ghost Rider who's film rights were previously held by Sony.  In early versions, Sony Pictures recommended 'Darkdevil' be frozen, likely due to the aforementioned conflict of rights. The use of 'Reilly Tyne as an alias for Darkdevil' appears on the list of 'frozen' characters while 'Darkdevil' appears under 'Marvel Reserved Characters'. Poor Reilly, even in the real world he gets a raw deal, split between so many 'fathers'.







(This might also explain why The Buzz was licenced for the Spider-Man Unlimited mobile game but Darkdevil never appeared, despite actually having spider-powers and being directly related. Not strictly relevant, but I did often wonder!)



It's also worth noting that in earlier versions mentioned above, Meagyn Brady, Magneta and Dragonfist were among the list of characters Sony Pictures wished to have included in their licence agreement, in addition to requesting the spelling of 'Mona Carlo' be corrected. Sony Pictures also felt 'Bluestreak' had 'clear associations with Spider-Man and/or a subsidiary character' enough to request a rationale for exclusion. Regardless, other than Meagyn, all these characters appear on the Schedule 8 list for 'Marvel Reserved Characters'.








It's simple enough to see how and why Stinger, Thunderstrike, Coal Tiger and even Magneta and Dragonfist and other aren't considered a part of the film right for Spider-Man, and are listed as 'Marvel Reserved Characters'. With characters like Hope Van Dyne in the MC2 based on Hope Pym, it's safe to assume the MC2 characters are on the radar for Marvel Studios to mine for future films. My money is on Stinger being the next MC2 character!




I do wonder where a character like Bluestreak falls in the eyes of a legal team. Blue is a former member of the mutant team X-People who first appeared in the Avengers related title A-Next, which is mostly associated with the MC2, primarily known for Spider-Girl, a Spider-Man character. Presumably she counts as either an X-Men character or an Avengers character or both like her predecessor in speed, Quicksilver. This stuff is messy!




The introduction of Spider-Man into Marvel Studios' MCU while Sony Pictures retains several related characters such as Venom for their own 'Sony Marvel Universe' further splits up the available characters within the MC2. For example, would a symbiote character like April Parker aka Mayhem be retained by Sony for their Venom film series or would her clone nature mean she is loaned to MCU?




It would seem that Mayday and her family are all free and clear to appear in a future production (such as a Into The Spider-Verse related movie, for example) but only some of her rogues gallery, supporting cast and fellow heroes are free and clear to make appearances alongside her. Personally, I'd settle for a great Spider-Girl appearance in a future animated film from Sony if it was as well produced as Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
I could cover this a bit more in future, if there's any interest. Let me know!

Until I stop being far too excited by legal documents, I remain

frogoat